I recently came to the shocking realization that I have never read an actual Sherlock Holmes novel. I’ve certainly watched movies and television shows based off the series as well as a few obscure animated adaptations… but when it comes to the actual source material I am sadly lacking.
To help remedy that I will be analyzing Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. The story begins when the wealthy owner of a massive stretch of rural England is found dead. Rumor has it he was killed by a demonic hound that has haunted his family for generations. The next heir to the Baskerville fortune is not a particularly superstitious person but doesn’t want to take any chances and so sets out to hire Sherlock Holmes and his trusty friend Watson to find the truth behind the recent Baskerville tragedy.
To be honest the plot has a sort of Scooby Doo vibe to it, just with dapper gentlemen instead of meddling kids.
Word Count: 59938 words
Average Word Size: 4.11 letters
Median Word Size: 4 letters
Longest Word: supernaturalists (16 letters)
Sentence Count: 3866
Average Sentence Length: 15.50 words
Median Sentence Length: 13 words
Longest Sentence: 78 words long
Dr. Mortimer turned the manuscript to the light and read in a high, cracking voice the following curious, old-world narrative: “Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been many statements, yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo Baskerville, and as I had the story from my father, who also had it from his, I have set it down with all belief that it occurred even as is here set forth.
It’s mildly interesting to note that the median and mean sentence lengths for this Sherlock mystery were shorter than both those of Frankenstein and Call of the Wild.
Comparing the texts for the three suggest a couple reasons for this.
First, The Hound of the Baskervilles contains a large amount of dialogue and spoken sentences tend to be more direct and less flowery than non-dialogue descriptive phrases. An author might spend thirty words describing a beautiful sunset but is unlikely to have any of their character’s start a conversation with a word run-on sentence about sunsets.
Second, Conan Doyle’s style in this book is much less melodramatic than that of either Mary Shelly or Jack London. He isn’t trying to capture the gothic despair at the frailty of life or describe complex emotions of a man faced with the vast and terrible nature of the endless wilds. Sherlock stories are cleanly written, reasonably paced mystery adventures and that seems to lend itself to shorter snappier sentences.
